George Osborne wants the private sector to build a Japanese-style 360mph “maglev” railway. “There are plenty of links I can think of – a link between Liverpool and Manchester, or Glasgow and Edinburgh, or London and its airports – which would bring huge benefits to Britain.” He plans to make it viable by taxing all other forms of transport to the point of bankruptcy.

George is in Japan and will ride the magnetic levitation train tomorrow. Not the first time he will have got high on a long line methinks.

Hat-tip : Kinnerly [sort of]

It is getting a bit murky ain’t it? Like Vegas in the early days, crooks and crooked politicians always seem to meet in casinos…

Roy Greenslade has a long delayed Guardian piece today. He describes Guido’s co-conspirator readers thus:

“What counts is the fact that his regular audience is drawn almost entirely from a small, but influential, elite.”

Guido is:

“the bastard lovechild of (former Sun editor) Kelvin MacKenzie and (rock gossip website) Popbitch”.

Pop!

The Tory Candidates Association is hosting a not very inclusive Female Candidates Breakfast at the party conference. It will be held on Monday 2nd, October at the Highcliffe Hotel, Bournemouth, from 7.30am – 9.30am.

Some members of the Candidates Association feel that having paid their dues it is a little bit irritating to be excluded so they have organised a rival event:

Sharper readers of the dead-tree-press will realise that headlines like “Kennedy ‘must recover’ before return” and “Sir Menzies Campbell made clear that he would be welcome but only once he is ‘fully recovered’ “ don’t make sense if he is now sober.

Guido understands that the FSA’s Directors meet today September 28th, Unity Trust Bank is low on the agenda. Off the record briefing line from the FSA is “everything is fine, don’t believe what you read on the internet.”

FSA chairman Sir Callum McCarthy is no fool and is politically attuned having worked for both Roy Hattersly and Norman Tebbit in his time. He even proudly displays in his office a large picture of him and Blair grinning at each other. Nevertheless he will no doubt make sure somebody checks the numbers…

Previous stories.

Ben Brogan, the Daily Mail political editor is new to blogging and the Press Gazette has noticed [Gone fishin'? Certainly not gone bloggin']

Ben Brogan, political editor of the Daily Mail, hasn’t quite got the hang of the latest craze at Westminster for setting up your own blog.

The best political bloggers — such as wannabe Tory MP Iain Dale and the mischievous Guido Fawkes — have updated their sites daily, even hourly, throughout the summer.

But Brogan is now finally back blogging after a month-long hiatus after last posting on 26 July. Curiously, he chose his last entry before his long break to write about MPs’ lengthy 76-day holiday in a piece entitled Gone Fishin’.

Perhaps Brogan should take a leaf out of Sky News political editor Adam Boulton’s book. He takes his blog so seriously that he was even updating it from his paradise island honeymoon with Tony Blair’s exgatekeeper Anji Hunter.

Bloggers like Iain and Greenwhich.watch have scored a bullseye during silly season with the ongoing AEG/Dome/Prescott sleaze. Iain recently rather sniffily remarked to Guido “I see you are so short of gossip you have resorted to doing politics…”

A young Guido was a friend of Gideon Sherman, as a result Guido would often be around the Sherman house. His father Sir Alfred always rendered Guido tongue-tied, he was right on so many issues and spectacularly wrong on others. He was great fun to hear when he was going full throttle.

After doing an economic analysis of British Rail Sherman concluded that the best thing to do would be to tarmac over the railways and turn them into private autobahns. Mrs Thatcher found it a teensy bit too radical. Unacceptable politically, but practical and right because it would have saved billions in subsidies. Guido has never understood how heavy energy inefficient heavy trains are more green than modern buses.

Wonder if Hurst’s biography of Charlie Kennedy now being serialised in the Times will tell the tale of the time Charlie was discovered passed out one morning in his office. This was not a rare event, but on this particular occasion there was a terrible smell in the room besides the alcohol fumes. Charlie had shat himself.

News reached Guido that Cherie’s unwanted cast-off outfit failed to attract any bids on ebay despite the signed photo thrown in. Remarking to Mrs Fawkes that she might have been a buyer (it being dark lawyers clothing) she responded aggressively: